Archives for July 2016

Abraham Kuyper was one of the most extraordinary individuals of his time. A prolific intellectual, theologian, and politician, he devoted much of his writing towards developing a public theology. His passion was to faithfully understand and engage culture through a Christian worldview. In his view, seeing Jesus as King is foundational to bridging the gap between the believer’s life inside the church and outside the church.

In Pro Rege, Kuyper argues that Christians can only engage culture fully when they realize that Jesus is the ruler of the world. The insightful and challenging reflections found in this volume have great relevance to modern Christians as we wrestle with the same questions Kuyper was in his day. And for the first time ever, volume one of this classic work is available in English. We’re so excited that his stimulating reflections are available in English that we’ve pulled together 10 of his most poignant quotes to share with you.

I can hardly believe I did it, because I loved my nine-year succession of four MacBooks and two iMacs, but I just moved back to the PC world for some of my daily work.

Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks: I love running Logos on a light, touchscreen, Windows laptop. (Note: tips for Mac users will also appear in this post. Don’t run away.)

I was with Logos Bible Software for Mac in its earliest days, before it achieved parity with the Windows app. For years the experience between Mac and Windows has been nearly identical. But there is one thing that necessarily sets the Logos Windows app apart from the Logos Mac app right now: touchscreens. There are currently no touchscreen Apple laptops.

After the ink dried on the last page of the last book of the New Testament, there was a period of fourteen centuries in which book-making technologies changed relatively little. The codex—the standard paper book—replaced the scroll fairly early on in that period, due in no small part to the influence of Christianity. But every book in Europe was still produced by the dip-scratch, dip-scratch of scribes hunched over writing desks with pens and inkwells.

In a comment on a recent LogosTalk blog post, a reader asked a question about saving verses from a Guide to a Passage List. The question reminded me about numerous shortcuts for getting verses into a Passage List document. If you frequently use Passage Lists , then you may enjoy some of these shortcuts!

All Christians agree that Christ is God—the doctrine of the Trinity is at the core of what we believe, and the church affirmed Jesus’ divinity in its early councils. Though we know the Bible affirms this, it even more clearly presents Jesus as our King. A quick Logos search shows that even Christ’s enemies called him a king (Matt 27:11; John 18:37; 19:19; Acts 17:7). Over a hundred verses in the New Testament affirm Jesus as Lord. Elsewhere he is even called the King of other kings (for example, 1 Tim 6:15; Rev 17:14). And in Matthew 28:18, Jesus himself says that he has all authority in heaven and earth.

Dig and dig and dig, and you’ll never reach the full depths of the Bible. Your lifetime will be a journey to the center of its worth. That doesn’t mean the Bible-gold you’ve discovered so far is iron pyrite; it simply means you should never stop digging.

And here’s the great thing: the wealth of other diggers is available to you. Many of them wrote down what they discovered. They were fallible diggers, yes, some more so than others . . . But for a tiny investment you can have what it took them a lifetime to amass.

It may sound backwards to speak of “using” the Bible: we don’t stand over the Bible, twisting it to our ends; the Bible stands over us and is one major means by which God uses us.

That’s all true, but think of it this way: when I’m tempted, or struggling, or arrogant, or lying, or spiritually lethargic, what am I supposed to do as a Christian? I’m supposed to avail myself of the grace of God, and one major means by which God gives me that grace is my Bible. If my mind is blank of Bible in times of trouble, I’m not using God’s word the way I’m supposed to. To apply a text of Scripture well is to use it with love and faith according to its intended purposes.

I was recently reading in Genesis 12, when the Lord calls Abram to leave his homeland and travel to a God-appointed location. Of course this event is recorded in Genesis 12, but I was curious as to where else this event is mentioned in Scripture. With Logos, a search like this is a breeze! Here’s how to find this answer:

When Jesus is asked to sum up the law, he responds with two commands involving love:

In both commands, the English translation “love” translates the Greek verb agapao. Partly because agape is one of those Greek words that many theologically literate Christians know (along with logos, christos, doulos, and a few others), Bible readers often think that in agape lies the secret key to understanding the love commands.

Assuming that Greek words contain a great depth of meaning hidden by English is a common Bible study mistake. And to show you one reason why: enter Logos Bible Software.

You and I live in a modern city, but imagine that across the river is another town very different from ours: an ancient one. We drive cars, they ride animals. We chat over coffee at a cafe; they chat over water at the community well. We suffer from a divisive and polarizing political situation; they—well, they do too. Not everything has changed in the last few thousand years. But our two towns are indeed separated by a river of differences in culture, language, and history.